


3A and 3B

by languageintostillair



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, and if rooftop conversation AUs existed as a category then this would fit, plus a smidge of coffee shop AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:00:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27303790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/languageintostillair/pseuds/languageintostillair
Summary: “Why areyouup here in the middle of the night, 3B?” He calls her 3B almost always, just to annoy her.“You’re not very quiet when you leave your apartment,3A.” She only calls him 3A when she’s annoyed with him, which is almost always. “All that door slamming and stomping down the hallway—”“That is a gross exaggeration,” he says indignantly. “You wouldn’t have heard anything if you weren’t already awake.”
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 62
Kudos: 275





	3A and 3B

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this on my phone at 6 am thinking it would be an under-1k mood piece about two people who meet on a rooftop in the middle of the night, and then this happened.

“Who is it this time?”

Jaime looks over his shoulder, and watches as the person who’d asked walks towards him. She’s in sweatpants three inches too short for her long legs, paired with her years-old King’s Landing University hoodie that she’d actually earned the right to wear, and she has flip-flops on though it’s chilly out tonight. Her phone is in her hand, the flashlight switched on to light her way. It’s three in the morning and dark out here on the roof, despite the single flickering bulb above the door that leads back down to their apartment building, and a hint of the orange glow of the lights lining the quiet streets four storeys below. Some nights there is the moon, but not tonight.

They’re not supposed to be up here, in the sense that the door to the rooftop has a padlock on the inside that’s been left unlocked for as long as he’s been living here, which is coming up on a year now. Brienne says it’s been left unlocked for as long as _she’s_ been living here, which is coming up on three years. Brienne, who is switching off the flashlight on her phone now that she’s made it to his side, then slipping the phone into her pocket before resting her elbows next to his on the parapet. Brienne, who isn’t looking at him though he hadn’t yet given her an answer to her question. Instead, she is gazing across the low buildings that make up the outskirts of King’s Landing, towards the much taller buildings at the city’s centre, and then the night sky above.

Jaime turns his head back to those much taller buildings. He used to live in one of those buildings, and work in another. It seems like a lifetime ago, and he hasn’t put on a full suit since—well, since he moved here. He puts on t-shirts and jeans nowadays, and an apron with a coffee cup printed on the front, and thanks the gods that he’s known his way around an espresso machine for years, even if he’d never made coffee for a stranger until about eight months ago. He’s not doing it to survive—he has a not-insignificant amount of savings, despite being cut off from the Lannister fortune—but it’s something to do every day. A routine to look forward to.

Maybe he is doing it to survive, then.

“So, who is it?” Brienne asks again.

“Who is what?” he replies, fixing his eyes on one of the few stars visible in the light-polluted sky.

“On your mind.”

“Why do you ask?”

“That’s why you usually come up here in the middle of the night, isn’t it?” She clears her throat. “Your father, or your sister, or—”

“Why are _you_ up here in the middle of the night, 3B?” He calls her 3B almost always, just to annoy her.

“You’re not very quiet when you leave your apartment, _3A_.” She only calls him 3A when she’s annoyed with him, which is almost always. “All that door slamming and stomping down the hallway—”

“That is a gross exaggeration,” he says indignantly. “You wouldn’t have heard anything if you weren’t already awake.”

“I wasn’t—” and then she sighs. He imagines she must be blushing, her cheeks coloured a traitorous pink.

“Who is it this time?” he asks now.

“Huh?”

“For you. Who was keeping you up?”

“How do you know it was a ‘who’ and not a ‘what’?”

“Alright. _What_ was keeping you up?”

“I asked you first.”

“And I’m declining to answer.”

“Then so am I.”

They’re childish. Most days, it’s the thing he likes most about them, him and his tall and awkward neighbour. It hadn’t started out that way between them—or perhaps it had. Perhaps he was being a child from the very first day they met, 3A and 3B, when they’d argued about how he was blocking her doorway with furniture too big for an apartment considerably tinier than his last. He’d said some unkind things to her that day, and a few more in the weeks after that. It was cruel of him, but he couldn’t stand how she looked at him as if there was no worse fate than living across the hallway from a Lannister. She’d known who he was from their first meeting, while it had taken him two months to find out her name. He remembers that recognition in her eyes, the bewilderment, then the disdain. She got under his skin that way, with just a glance of those impossibly blue eyes of hers. _I know what you are_ , they seemed to say.

But she didn’t. In fairness, Jaime probably didn’t either. He’d always thought he belonged with his family, and it had taken him over three decades to realise there was a difference between ‘belonging _with_ ’ and ‘belonging _to_ ’. Still, even when he’d quit the family business, gotten sick of and sickened enough by everything, he didn’t think he’d be able to stay away forever. His father and sister certainly didn’t think he’d be able to, though his brother had hoped he might. _I want you to just be Jaime_ , Tyrion had said. _Not Jaime Lannister, or Tywin’s son, or Cersei’s twin. You can live some other life._

The life Tyrion had in mind for Just-Jaime probably didn’t involve renting a small apartment in this part of the city, and working as a barista in a coffee shop three blocks away. Still, it was better than what his life had been in the first two months of living here, clouded by anger and anxiety and alcohol. And then he’d broken a bottle in the hallway separating apartments 3A and 3B, and Brienne—he still only knew her as 3B then—had burst through her door ready for a fight, except he’d been so drunk at the time that he’d cut himself on a shard of glass and it seemed as if there was blood _everywhere_ , and he’d woken up the next day on her couch with a massive hangover and a neatly bandaged right hand.

As it turns out, this was as good a bonding experience as any other. Tentatively, she’d given him her name that morning, and she no longer glared at him every time their paths crossed after that, though he thought she might have more reason to do so given the trouble he’d caused. When he finally got around to asking her about it, the two of them lingering in the hallway with their keys jingling in their hands, she only said that he’d said some… _things_ , when he was drunk that night.

 _What things?_ he’d asked.

 _About your family_. She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. _And about how I looked at you. I didn’t realise I was—_

 _Oh_ , he said, and felt compelled to unlock his door so he didn’t have to see those impossibly blue eyes anymore. _Well, see you around._

She was the one who’d suggested the coffee shop. She went there a few times a week, and by the time they’d put up a sign to say they were hiring, she and Jaime had spoken enough for her to know he actually did have some of the skills required. Honestly, he was just going to try it out for a couple of months, until a couple of months became eight. It’s been nice, to fill his days with something so antithetical to the life he’d lived as Jaime Lannister. Here, he’s Just-Jaime. Just-Jaime who’s still recognised from time to time, but who shrugs it off with a half-smile if anyone ever dares to ask. Mostly, he’s just _that hot barista at that coffee shop round the corner_. Brienne had overheard someone say that on the street one Saturday afternoon, and had rolled her eyes as she’d told him about it.

 _I regret ever mentioning this job to you_ , she grumbled as he worked on her flat white. _There’s always a line out the door now._

_I told you, just come up to the counter when you’re here._

_And I told you that isn’t fair to everyone else._

He shrugged. _What’s the point of being neighbours with the hot barista if you’re not going to take advantage of it?_

She only rolled her eyes again.

“You really don’t want to talk about it?” Brienne asks, the Brienne beside him on the rooftop now, and not the one from his memory.

“I’m just thinking,” he replies. “Don’t worry.”

“You’re sure?”

Jaime laughs. “Yes, 3B, I’m sure.”

She was right. There usually is someone on his mind when he comes up here at this time of the night, someone with the last name Lannister. But he hasn’t been on the receiving end of any harassment for a while now. Tyrion hinted at something happening with the business, but Jaime didn’t want to hear the details. He expects he’ll hear from his father and sister again once the situation blows over.

“Alright then,” Brienne says. “If you’re okay. I’m going to—go. Back down.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t?”

“Stay with me awhile.” He keeps his eyes on the low buildings, and the much taller ones, and the night sky. “Tell me what was keeping you up.”

“Oh. Um—I’d rather—”

“I can be a good listener, you know.”

“I know. You’ve…” She trails off, and takes a breath. “I know.”

Still, she says nothing further. Jaime turns his head to her, observes the breeze caressing the loose strands of her straw blonde hair.

“Stop that,” she says, without looking his way.

“Stop what?”

“Stop staring.”

“Why?”

“I know I look a mess—”

“Did I _say_ that was why I was staring?”

“You don’t have to.”

Jaime holds back a sigh. He’s no stranger to self-deprecation, but with Brienne… 

“I was just looking at your hair,” he says. “It looks nice, all windswept like that.”

She whips her head to him, her eyes flashing accusingly, her lips parting in some silent protest.

“It _does_ ,” he insists.

“It’s dark,” she says, looking away again.

“I would say so even if it wasn’t.”

Abruptly, she stands away from the parapet. “Good night, Jaime,” she announces.

“What?” He pushes his elbows off the parapet too, and turns to face her. “What the—what the hell did I do this time?” 

“Nothing. Good night.”

“You’re ridiculous, you know that?”

“Oh, now I’m _ridiculous_.”

“You _are_. I was being _nice_.”

“I don’t need _nice_.”

“So you want me to be mean to you?”

“No!” she exclaims. “I just don’t need you to—to say things like that! It’s confusing!”

“Why would it be _confusing_? I think your hair looks nice—” he holds out his hands in the air to the left of him— “and I say so,” he continues, shifting his hands to the right. “It’s really quite simple.”

Brienne groans. “Forget it. Good night, Jaime.”

She takes a step away, but before she can take another, he catches her by the wrist. He only holds it for a second, though, because she snatches her hand towards her chest as if his touch had scalded her through the sleeve of her hoodie. 

“Don’t do that, Jaime,” she warns.

“Oh, is this _confusing_ too?”

“Yes!” She grips her hand even more tightly to her chest. “Look. We’re just _neighbours_ , and—”

“ _Just_. Neighbours.” It feels like his whole universe is being sucked into that word _just_. “Okay,” he says, calmly as he can. “I see.”

He strides past her towards the door beneath the single flickering light. _Just neighbours._ To think he’d hoped that—

“Wait,” she calls out, and he stops. “Wait—Jaime. I’m—”

He isn’t sure what comes over him. Next thing he knows, he’s kissing her. He doesn’t remember turning around, or walking back towards her, or going up just slightly on his toes so he can make up for that inch or two she has on him.

He pulls away before she has the chance to do so. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”

Brienne lifts one hand to her lips, and stares at him.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I’m going to—just forget that I—I’m sorry. That wasn’t how I’d meant to—”

Her eyes widen even further. “You’d meant to?”

“Well, not like _that_.”

“Oh.”

She still has two fingers to her lips, and she isn’t moving. But before Jaime can step back, slink away into the night mortified by his own foolishness, she throws her arms around his neck and presses her lips to his again. Her kisses are clumsy, but eager, and he has to slow her down with his own, coax her, give up and surrender to her. No, this isn’t how he’d meant to do it at all. But this is them, him and his tall and awkward neighbour, 3A and 3B. Stumbling from an argument into their first kiss on a sleepless, moonless night.

“It was you,” he murmurs, when they finally come up for air.

“What?”

“Who it was this time. Why I came up here.”

“Oh.” She looks off to the side, biting back a smile. “It—it was you too. Keeping me up.”

Jaime grins. “I can think of other ways I can keep you—”

She jumps back from him. “Jaime!”

“Come on,” he teases. “I can fulfil your hot barista fantasy.”

“I don’t have a—a _hot barista fantasy_.”

“Of course you do. It’s why you told me about the coffee shop in the first place.”

“It isn’t!”

“I see you.” He backs towards the door, keeping his eyes on her as he does. “You were playing the long game.”

“I wasn’t!” she objects, stalking towards him. “You wanted a—I _wasn’t_!”

Jaime just smirks as he opens the door, and Brienne huffs her way past him. He has a spring in his step all the way down, but when they arrive at the hallway separating 3A and 3B, he feels nervous all of a sudden. More nervous when he sees Brienne wringing her hands by her door.

“We don’t have to do anything,” he offers. “I mean, I’d like to kiss you goodnight, but—”

“Is that okay? It’s just—it’s a lot. I wasn’t expecting—”

He silences her with a kiss, muffles his own disappointment too. He’d been dreaming of this—kissing her, being more than _just neighbours_ with her—for longer than he cared to admit. But as he slips back into apartment 3A, he reminds himself that she’ll be right there across the hall, where she’s whispering _good night_ to him through the crack in the door. He smiles, and says _good night_ back, and thinks he’ll have her in his dreams, if nothing else.

But he won’t. Because he doesn’t dream. Because he’s been lying on his bed for the past fifteen minutes, wide awake and with no sign of sleep on the horizon.

“Fuck this.” He swings himself out of bed, and paces over to his front door. He’ll knock, and if she doesn’t answer, it’ll be fine. At least he’ll have tried, right? So he grabs his keys and opens the door and—

“Oh,” Brienne says. She has her fist held up in front of her, suspended in the air pre-knock. “I—I couldn’t sleep. I was about to—”

He pulls her in by the waist, by the lips, into apartment 3A. Here, he’s Just-Jaime—Just-Jaime who’s half in love with his tall and awkward neighbour from 3B, who isn’t _just neighbours_ with her anymore, who’ll have her in his bed on this sleepless, moonless night. Tomorrow—or rather, later today—he’ll go to work at the coffee shop, and she’ll refuse to jump the line when she comes in for her flat white. But he’ll steal glances at her the entire time she’s waiting, and he’ll smile his brightest smile at her when it’s finally her turn, and he’ll lean across the counter and kiss her in front of everyone. She will scold him for it later, but in that moment she will kiss him back, and their whole universe will be contained within just one kiss. Just-Jaime, Just-Brienne. Just each other.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Roccolinde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/roccolinde) and [jencat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jencat) as always!


End file.
